Please find below the letter I have received from Exeter City Council regarding the consultation on a Public Spaces Protection Order.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): One of the principal causes of congestion in urban areas is, of course, illegal parking. What is the Secretary of State doing to make the enforcement system simpler and more effective?

Mr McLoughlin: That, too, is a matter for local highway authorities, which can employ the necessary measures and regulations.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and congratulate NHS England on what sounds like a very thorough report. I remind him that challenging the methodology was exactly the same first line of defence used by the now disgraced management at Mid Staffs hospital. Will he answer the specific question my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) asked as to when Ministers first knew about problems in the trust, which we hear go back to 2011, and what action they took as a result?

Mr Hunt: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I hope I did address that by saying that the first time was when we realised there were issues around the tragic death of Connor Sparrowhawk. That is what started the process and led to the independent investigation. Because NHS England wanted it to be very thorough, that investigation went right back to 2011 and up to 2015. It looked at all unexpected deaths in that period, and at the reporting culture and lessons that had or had not been learned as a result. A lot of action has been taken. I can also reassure the right hon. Gentleman that during that period we have been implementing the recommendations of the Francis report, which has meant that throughout the NHS there is much greater focus on and transparency in patient safety.

It is important to give the NHS credit. During the past three years, we have actually seen a 25% increase in the number of reported incidents. I think people are treating this much more seriously than in the past, but there is much more to do.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): I am sorry to have to say, not for the first time in this House over the last few years, that in spite of all the warm reassurances from the Government that our mental health services are getting better, the experience of my constituents as users of the service, people who work in the service and those who manage the service is completely different.

It is extremely welcome that mental health has risen up the political agenda in recent years. I pay tribute to the many people outside and inside this House who, by speaking of their own experiences, have helped to achieve that. However, the higher public profile has not yet translated into delivery on the ground. In my area, the public are still experiencing services being cut and are still having to wait an unacceptably long time for talking therapies and other treatments.

In spite of the repeated warnings about the scandal of people being sent out of area in recent years and the assurances we have received, there was a 23% increase in the number of patients sent out of area last year, taking it up to more than 500. In Devon, which is one of the worst performing parts of the country, 45 patients were forced miles away from their friends and families.

I recently experienced that problem for myself, when the bright and previously happy teenage daughter of a close friend of the family had a crisis. While on the waiting list to receive treatment, her crisis escalated rapidly and she had to be admitted. There were no suitable beds at all in London, where she and her family live. She was first sent to Southampton, only for the unit there to be deemed unsuitable. She was then sent to Manchester.

Paula Sherriff: In my area of Kirklees, some children and adolescents wait up to two years for out-patient talking therapies. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is appalling and completely unacceptable? Does he also agree that early intervention is very important to ensure that people do not suffer too much in later life?

Mr Bradshaw: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As she clearly articulates, the picture on the ground is very different from the one that is so often painted by the Government.

The House may remember a case that caused headlines a couple of years ago when I raised it in another debate. A 16-year-old girl in Devon was kept in a police cell for two nights because no bed could be found for her anywhere in the country. Her case is not unusual. As we have heard in this debate, more than 6,000 people with mental illnesses were held in police cells last year.

Marie Rimmer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the provision of tier 4 CAMHS beds is a national commissioning issue? Those beds are commissioned by NHS England, not by the CCGs. I think that that is a problem. The Government need to focus on the nationally commissioned beds. Many young people who have eating disorders get to the stage where they need such beds.

Mr Bradshaw: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that the Minister heard her intervention, because I will leave that bit out of my speech. I was going to raise the ongoing problem of the interface between mental health services for young people and adolescents and those for adults. A lot of people are falling through the gap.

There has been a lot of talk, including from the Government, about parity of esteem, but there is scant evidence of it on the ground at a local level. I ask the Minister to explain when he responds to the debate why, if the Government are serious about parity of esteem, NHS England has removed it from this year’s NHS mandate. That is the important document that the NHS publishes every year to tell local health services what they have to deliver. Why has parity of esteem been removed?

Why are the Government cutting so drastically the funding for public health, which delivers many preventive services, such as alcohol and drug treatments and psychological support for young people in schools, that prevent people from getting ill in the first place, saving money and lives.

As we have heard, after years of falling, the rate of male suicide is on the increase again. Suicide is the main cause of avoidable death among young males.

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Would my right hon. Friend like to attend a meeting held by the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention and the all-party mental health group, at which Dr Robert Colgate will address us on the subject of triaging? By that process, mental health nurses, social workers and GPs can triage a patient for whom they cannot get an immediate appointment and enable appropriate care plans to be put in place while they wait for the next-stage appointment. The meeting is on 29 January, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will join us.

Mr Bradshaw: I am sure that hon. Members will be grateful for that public invitation in spite of the pressure on their diaries from numerous all-party parliamentary groups.

Yesterday, the Health Select Committee was told that, whereas the vast majority of acute hospital trusts were expecting to run deficits this year—a big increase— the figure for mental health trusts was much lower. We might think that that is a good thing, but the reason that acute trusts are running such big deficits is that they are giving priority to ensuring safe care. So, if far fewer mental health trusts are running deficits, is that because they are simply cutting services? I should be grateful to hear the Minister’s view on the difference between the deficits being run by mental health trusts and those run being by general acute hospital trusts.

I shall close now, because many people want to speak in the debate. There is probably no one here or outside the House who has not been affected, or whose family has not been affected, by mental illness. We have been hearing warm words from the Government for several years about how things will improve. Indeed, we have heard today that they are improving, but that is not the experience of people on the ground. So I hope that, when the Minister responds, he will focus on action and delivery and not just on words.

You can read my letter to the Express and Echo regarding the redevelopment plans for Exeter Bus Station, and particularly the proposed swimming pool, here.

My letter for the Express and Echo on George Osborne's spending review is available online here.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Climate change is the biggest challenge that any of us or any future generations will face. It is absolutely right that the House should be given the opportunity to debate this important issue, particularly with Paris just a couple of weeks away. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to debate this subject. I shall confine my remarks almost entirely to the domestic issues and the Government’s policy on renewable energy and its impact on Britain’s CO2 reduction targets, but also on jobs more widely and the UK’s reputation going into the Paris conference.

As we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), thanks to the information we received via a leaked letter from the Energy Secretary, we now know that Britain is likely to miss our 2020 target of 15% of energy production from renewables by some margin, in all likelihood reaching just 11%. That compares to Germany, which already produces 31% of its energy from renewables. As we have also heard, the cheapest renewable energy by far is onshore wind. It is so cost-effective that is no longer needs any subsidy, but as we have also heard, it has been virtually stopped in its tracks in England by the Government’s planning changes.

Now the Government are proposing to abandon support for solar almost completely, in spite of the growing scientific and political consensus around the world that it holds the secret to our future carbon-free energy needs. The proposed cut in solar feed-in tariffs by a staggering 87% from 1 January will devastate our fledging solar industry and make meeting the legally binding target of 15% by 2020 far more difficult. At the same time, the Government are announcing huge subsidies for nuclear, gas and highly polluting diesel generators. How can that make sense?

We now face a situation in which in a couple of years’ time, renewables could be the only sector not to receive any subsidy. There is also the impact on jobs, our economy and our science base. Our solar industry alone provides 35,000 jobs, including nearly 4,000 in the south-west of England. We face losing 27,000 of those jobs nationally, including more than 3,000 in the south-west, if the proposal goes ahead unaltered. That figure is similar to—indeed, higher than—the job losses recently announced in the steel industry, but these jobs have a far lower profile because they are at small companies, they are scattered all over the country and they do not have a loud enough political voice. The irony is that by 2020 our solar industry could be operating subsidy-free. Indeed, the sector itself acknowledges the common sense in reducing the feed-in tariff, but it believes it should be done in a tapered way, not with a cliff edge, as is currently proposed. As my hon. Friend said, jobs are already being lost because of the uncertainty. We had the announcement of another 35 job losses in Exeter this week alone.

I would like to say a little about the situation facing hundreds of community renewable energy projects up and down the country in the light of recent announcements of changes to the way in which tax relief is administered. As hon. Members will remember, that was announced without any consultation on Third Reading of the Finance Act 2015 at the end of October and is to take effect at the end of this month—just one month’s notice. This, I am afraid, is a disgrace. Those renewable energy schemes at community level get off the ground as the result of the blood, sweat and tears—often over years—of thousands of ordinary, civic-minded citizens, who have now had the rug pulled from under them.

My community energy project in Exeter has been working tirelessly for more than two years preparing its share offer, but it had to rush it out this week, before it was really ready, in order to beat the loss of tax relief at the end of the month. The project has, heroically, managed to raise more than a quarter of the funds it needs, but raising the rest will be much more difficult without the tax reliefs, which have suddenly been taken away. Community Energy England estimates that £127 million of current investment and £242 million of potential future investment is at risk from the decision. When the Secretary of State responds, I would like to know whether she or her fellow Minister were consulted on the change, and if not, why not? If they were, why did they agree to it? I understand that the community energy sector feels so angry and betrayed by the decision that it is considering taking legal action, and I am sure there are many people in this House and outside who would support that.

The Secretary of State asserted earlier in departmental questions that she believed that Britain under the current Government had maintained its leadership role and its international reputation on climate change, but in that case why has Ernst & Young dropped the United Kingdom from the top 10 countries for renewable energy attractiveness? Why did the UN chief environment scientist, Jacquie McGlade, say recently on the BBC that it was

“disappointing…when we see countries such as the United Kingdom that have really been in the lead in terms of getting their renewable energy up and going—we see subsidies being withdrawn and the fossil fuel industry being enhanced”?

She went on to say that she thought Britain was sending a worrying signal in the run-up to Paris by shifting away from clean energy just when the rest of the world was rushing towards it.

David Mowat: I made the point earlier that one of the issues we face is that we confuse decarbonisation with renewables, and I think many of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks are along those lines. He talked earlier about Germany, which has 34% renewables but very high emissions because it is building coal-powered stations. The Government’s position is to reduce carbon, but not just by using renewables.

Mr Bradshaw: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman: it is not an either/or. What he says about Germany is absolutely right and is due in large part to the, in my view, unusually foolish policy decision by the Merkel Government to withdraw from nuclear. Germany is paying a high price for that, and it is a very good lesson to those of us who advocate an anti-nuclear policy.

Caroline Lucas: I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s analysis. Real analysis of what has happened in Germany shows that the reason why coal has come up and taken that space is the lowering of the price, not least because of the dash for gas in the US which has resulted in a low price for coal. That is what has undercut the situation in Germany, not the fact that it has had to get rid of nuclear.

Mr Bradshaw: I am not going to have a ping-pong about it, but I am sure there is a price driver as well. The simple fact is that Germany needed that coal because it had abandoned nuclear energy so suddenly.

When the Secretary of State responds at the end of this debate, I want her to explain to the House and the British public why the Government have adopted the approach they have on renewables since the election. I want an honest assessment from her, given what I have said, of how she feels that has impacted on Britain’s reputation internationally and on our leadership role. I would also like a clearer explanation than we have heard so far from the Government of how they intend to close the gap between our legally binding 2020 target and the current trajectory.

I remember climate change summits not that long ago when Britain was a world leader. The commitment, hard work and leadership of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott and my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) delivered real and vital progress globally and at home. Even the current Prime Minister felt the need for a while at least to pay lip service to this agenda, but I am afraid that since 2010, and particularly since this year’s election, the Conservatives appear to have stopped even pretending to take climate change seriously. They are doing real damage to our renewable energy industry, and I believe they are damaging Britain’s reputation in the process.

I hope we will see more progress and a more positive approach in the run-up to Paris, and I hope that the Secretary of State and her colleagues can persuade the rest of their colleagues in government to take this—the biggest challenge both in Britain and globally—far more seriously than they are.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State now have a go at answering the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) about how many more thousands of jobs will be lost in the renewable energy sector as a result of her Government’s decision to pull the plug on solar and onshore wind? How does she respond to the comments of the United Nations chief environment scientist Jacquie McGlade, who recently said that Britain now, under the Tory Government, is sending a “worrying signal” by “shifting away from clean energy as the rest of the world rushes towards it”?

Amber Rudd: Once more, with the right hon. Gentleman’s comment, we hear an Opposition Member fail to mention the fact, as announced yesterday, that we have put a date on the end of coal. I have received huge congratulations from international commentators. The situation is completely different from the one he tries to paint. The Government are committed to growing the renewable industry, are proud of the amount by which it has grown and will continue to support it, including through job creation.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Further to the question from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), will the Minister acknowledge that other EU citizens living here contribute far more through their taxes than they receive in services or social security payments? The problem with social security is not the EU; it is the fact that, almost uniquely, we in the UK have lost the contributory principle from our system. The answer is to start to reintroduce that principle.

Mr Lidington: I would certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that in the debate about migration controls, it is important that we not stray into stigmatising people from elsewhere in Europe, or from any other part of the world, who are here obeying the law, working and contributing to life in this country. He mentioned the contributory principle, but that point could also apply to policy pursued under successive British Governments of all political stripes. I draw his attention back to article 153 of the treaty, which makes it clear that it is for member states, rather than the EU, to define the fundamental principles of their social security systems. I believe that it would contradict that treaty provision if we were to say that only one model for social security was compatible.

You can watch my appearance on this weekend's Sunday Politics South West here.